S_

“Those speeches are fully committed to memory now.”

-Timothée Chalamet speaking Chakobsa

After looking at a million screenshots, I'm pretty confident that the knife Paul has for most of Dune Part Two is not the one Chani gives him to fight Jamis at the end of Part One. It's Jamis's own knife.

This is the knife Chani gives Paul:

It has a very smooth, almost botanical-looking curve to the blade, overlapping circular carvings that go all the way to the edge of the base of the blade, more circular carvings on the end of the hilt, and a noticeable wood grain to the part of the hilt that's not metal. The blade also transitions from dark to light very noticeably close to the base.

It's the same knife Paul sees in his vision--both the image of it lying sheathed on the sand and in the scene were Chani stabs him.

The most distinctive thing about the knife Paul uses in the final duel with Feyd-Rautha is its shape. It has this very noticeable sharp notch or bend about a third of the way down the blade that makes it look, for lack of a better word, kind of mean. When we get close-ups of it we can see that it has carvings near the hilt of concentric circles with lines running out of them, something carved vertically down the metal part of the hilt, and a much smoother color transition from gray to slightly lighter at the tip. He wears it in a scabbard that looks like it has some kind of design stamped into the leather all the way down.

Paul has this knife as early as the harvester attack, but he doesn't have it in the opening battle with the Harkonnens during the eclipse (when we see that Jamis's knife is still tied to the shroud around his body).

We don't get a ton of close-ups of Jamis's knife in either film, but what we do see...

...yeah, looks like a pretty good match to me.

This makes me wonder if there's a deleted scene out there somewhere where Paul receives this knife. While not essential to the plot, this would have been symbolically resonant, and would have played better than the scene in the book where Paul receives Jamis's uhhh actual wife and children.

I don’t think I can handle it.

bye.

This is the first vision Paul has on Arrakis, while they're rescuing the harvester crew. He sees Chani (who he has dreamed of but not met at that point) kiss him, and then stab him with a crysknife. He describes the scene to Jessica as, "I think I saw my death, only it wasn't."

One of the reasons this scene feels so dreamy and surreal is that it's intercutting two different takes of the same action, shot from opposite sides. It's deliberately breaking the 180-degree rule, which leaves us slightly disoriented even if we don't know why.

This is one take, with Chani screen right and Paul screen left:

This is the other one. Now we've moved 180 degrees around them and Paul is screen right and Chani is screen left.

The little details of their physicality are slightly different in each take, but the basic action is the same: Chani draws Paul into a kiss, and then uses their proximity to stab him. We actually see the moment of the stab repeated twice, here:

and here:

Because of the way the two shots are cut together, Chani and Paul are constantly switching places on screen, sometimes almost exactly overlaid in the same places in the frame--including right at the moment of the stab, where we cut very quickly between the two shots.

​​ᴘᴀᴜʟ ᴀᴛʀᴇɪᴅᴇꜱ​ ✧ ​ᴀɴᴀᴋɪɴ ꜱᴋʏᴡᴀʟᴋᴇʀ

A Time of Quiet Between the Storms

what we hear: The music is building slowly. Very slowly. You can hear the sand dancing all around it. The wind blowing. There is a melody that sounds like hope. There are some whispers in the background. It all sounds like as if something is glowing. The layers keep adding up until the hopeful melody is all you can hear, building with harmonies, with such a bright sound you can almost see the sun if you close your eyes listening to it. It is somehow deeply sad and hopeful at the same time. Drums are added which elevates the music to a level that altogether feels epic.

what we see: Nothing is safe. None of them knows what their future holds, whether they will find safety or not, what tomorrow is going to bring. They are trying to find their ways in whatever is left of their world. These tiny moments together are all they have. Outside of these moments all there is are fights, tears and loss. The pressure of his future would break him if it wasn't for her. But there's the miracle of somehow finding each other throughout all this. Getting to know each other day by day. With small gestures like glances and touches and smiles building up. Finding safety in each other. Building trust. Falling in love.

Kiss the Ring

what we hear: A sizzle. Harmony. The melody slowly returning. The same glowing, beautiful melody of hope. Carrying their world. Their moments. Their love. Their fate. It builds quickly, instrument by instrument. until it feels monumental once again, even louder than before- but another layer appears, and it is bittersweet. Sounds like victory. Vocals are added and there is a piercing high note in the background that is ominous. It is their melody still, but there is no "them" anymore. Heartbeats. Beating faster. What was once theirs is now no more. The music stops on a high and shatters all at once, just like her world did.

during this press tour: a)timmy said z learnt sandwalk and how to drive the sandworm easier and quicker than him. he struggled to look tough on that worm. b)when asked who would be the one survived the longest on Arrakis among the cast. Rebecca said definitely not timothee. in Korea they asked the same question to the three of them and timmy also said not him. c)timmy said he was not familiar with film set of size this big during the first movie and it's only getting better when he's on the second one.

thinking about these things I assumed it's never a easy task for timmy to take on such a mentally and physically challenging role. bc maybe his body just isn't built like that. but he NAILED it. he put so much efforts into this project we should all feel proud of him and happy for him that his hard work finally paid off.

❤❤Timmy was able to express the transition from young duke to Lisan al Gaib so well that it moved me during the film. The speech in the circle is one of the most exciting things about this Dune 2 where even more than the previous one, he shows all his qualities. Tim obviously isn't the muad dib in real life but he was able to interpret it so well that it thrilled everyone . Chapeau

— Eclipse, Pink Floyd